WASHINGTON — Galileo School for Gifted Learning in Sanford, Florida has been named the 2015 winner of the Golden Psi Award by the Board of Educational Affairs of the American Psychological Association.
Galileo was selected to receive the award for promoting achievement and social-emotional learning through psychological science. The award is given to schools that demonstrate psychologically sound practices, which contribute to improving a child’s education.
“Winning this award validates the success of our education model,” said Michele Gill, PhD, founder of Galileo School. “The students love going to school and feel the power to have their needs met. Ultimately, that is what our education model is all about.”
A student-centered “voices and choices” curriculum creates a unique learning environment at Galileo. While a standard curriculum of core academic classes (e.g., math, science and reading) make up most of the curriculum, students are able to choose creative productivity workshops based on specific interests, including a variety of subjects from health to robotics to digital storytelling. The school surveys its students at the end of every school year to determine what they are interested in learning and creates some of the curriculum based on the responses.
“The selection committee was most impressed by Galileo’s unique ability to offer the students wide choices in what they want to learn,” said school psychologist Tammy Hughes, PhD, chair of the Golden Psi Award selection committee. “By offering a robotics elective, for example, the children will be more motivated to learn regular math skills because it is applied to robotics.”
Galileo’s cultural philosophy is composed of five principles (nurture, challenge, motivation, passionate interests and service) designed to create the best possible learning community. The school represents a culture of kindness and care for each student. There is also a level of comfort for students, in which teachers meet them in their personal “zone” with work that is neither too easy nor too difficult.
Parental involvement, according to Galileo Principal Michelle Nunez, is another factor that sets Galileo apart from other schools. Through classroom visits, Parent Teacher Association (PTA) involvement and other activities, parents volunteer on average 20 hours per school year, Nunez said.
A public charter school, Galileo offers instruction for grades K-6 with a total of 272 students enrolled in the 2014-15 academic year.
“Galileo was developed based on a child’s need for nurturing, appropriate level of challenge and specific student-focused interests,” Gill said. “I wanted to establish a school where learning could be focused on the students and not passing a test.”
The Golden Psi Award is based on factors that include educational adaptations shown to be appropriate for a school’s demographic makeup, the use of evidence-based interventions, measureable academic and/or social-emotional growth and monitoring of an individual’s or group’s progress.
Galileo School for Gifted Learning received a trophy and a check for $1,000 and will be publicized with a poster display at the education booth at the American Psychological Association convention, on the APA website and in the APA Monitor on Psychology.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 122,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.